The purpose of this study was to investigate Turkish secondary school biology teachers'' and their students'' views of effective biology teaching in order to make suggestions to improve both teacher education at pre-service and in-service levels and policies regarding teaching and learning in schools. In order to contribute to this field, I conducted a small-scale survey study. The sample comprised six state secondary schools from three different districts in the province of Hatay in Turkey. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were employed to collect the study''s data. A student questionnaire investigating students'' views of effective teaching and the current situation in biology teaching and their attitudes towards the teaching methods and activities was administered to 324 year-ten (15-16 years old) students. This was followed by semi-structured focus group interviews with 69 students (36 girls and 33 boys in 12 groups) who volunteered from the questionnaire sample. I also conducted semi-structured individual interviews with 12 biology teachers.